Sculptie Dev

when i was first pitching the sculptie idea inside LL, there was substantial concern that without an in-viwer editor, and with only a maya exporter - the sculpties were too "raw" to be released. i argued that we ought to put them out anyway, and let our advanced residents use them as they could.

what i didn't expect was the literal avalanche of resident collaboration to bring sculpties to the masses. from tutorials to walk-throughs to plugins to external applications - you guys have really come through. it's made me very very happy. bravo. and thank you.

now i'm inspired to take this curious situation one step further. as an experiment.

below i've listed a variety of sculptie bugs/tasks/projects that still need work in the second life viewer. they range in complexity from day-long projects to multi-month projects. if you happen to be a decent software engineer, have a copy of our open-source client, and are bored - i suggest you take a look. perhaps there's something in here that "moves" you.

and because i think it's unfair to take without giving back - here's my promise to you: as a developer on the "inside" of LL - i'll do my part to enable you guys to extend/advance SL in the ways you want. first up is a small change that, had it existed six months ago, would have let the OSS community implement their OWN sculpties. hopefully, with changes like these, you won't need to wait for LL to implement the features you want.

and like i said, this is an experiment. if we fail - then no harm, no foul.

best,

K.

--Qarl Linden 11:40, 22 June 2007 (PDT)

Tasks

• VWR-866 adjust jpeg compression to improve sculptie accuracy
• VWR-1335 improve sculptie degenerate surface detection
• VWR-1336 use streaming media image-feed to drive sculpties
• VWR-698 (and related) create in-world based sculptie editors
• VWR-1452 linkset capture to sculpted prim
• Sculpted Prims: Importing - Better Sculptie importing tools.

for Qarl:

• SVC-350 create new "extra prim parameter" type for open-source (outside LL) use.

Feedback

Qarl, I'd like to congratulate you on how you handled the release of sculpties from the Linden side. I can only hope that other Linden developers (and your managers) take it as a model.

To expand on this cooperation, we're still going to need an active dialog with you. I might have what I think is a great idea, and be willing to code it up and submit it as a patch, if I had good reason to believe that it would be incorporated into the standard client in a timely fashion. But that's a big "if". There are lots of valid reasons why it might not be picked up -- it would require too much user support, it has an adverse impact on some other part of the system, it conflicts with other features being developed internally, Linden testers have higher priorities, ... . Are you willing to play the role of Linden insider to give us your take on whether a feature would be picked up? And if you think not, what is your reasoning?

As a concrete example, there is a concensus (among at least two of us) that when lowering LOD, points should be sampled instead of interpolated, so that the sculpty creator can manage LOD without sacrificing vertices. If we created a mechanism for first building a larger concensus on the merits of the proposal, and then submitted a patch, would you be there to give us the insider's view, and then to help usher it through the Linden process, should it make it that far? --Omei Turnbull 16:06, 23 June 2007 (PDT)

Omei - sorry it took me so long to get back to you - i hadn't really published this page and i didn't expect for it to reach an audience yet. (you tricky guys.)

regarding dialog: YES. i agree 100% (which is why my delay here is so embarrassing.) you absolutely positively need that sort of feedback - and that's part of my goal in creating this page and starting this experiment. (and documenting the hell out of it, per your comment above about my co-developers/managers.)

where do you think this dialog should occur? i'm not a big fan of wiki discussion pages - perhaps on the sldev mailing list? or a new mailing list? we should decide quickly.

regarding the sampling issue - yes, let's discuss it. if we have consensus - i'll make sure it gets into the client. --Qarl Linden 11:15, 26 June 2007 (PDT)

Super! I don't think the Wiki is a good place for this, either. I'm sure there will be at least one individual who won't like this, but I would vote for using the SL Building Tips forum. It seems to me that one of the reasons the community has been so quick to pick up on sculptys is that there has been so much fruitful interaction between the tool developers and the pioneer users. If we have the discussion on the sldev mailing list, I'm afraid we'll just have developers talking to each other. --Omei Turnbull 14:26, 26 June 2007 (PDT)

Then let me be the first of those people to decry that section of the forum. It's VERY public, and people go there looking for help or to show off stuff they've made or new techniques, not necessarily to help out in a meaningful manner (post +1 ftl), especially in a manner that helps with programming. I DO however agree that a forum would be a good idea, possibly a developers section of the SL forum where the more technologically savvy of the lot can contribute directly. I'm also in favour of IRC due to the rapid interaction possible and the sheer volume of people allowed to be in one room at a time (as opposed to SL where 12+ will bring my computer to its knees, and 40 will crash a sim).

-- Feynt Mistral 14:41, 26 June 2007 (PDT)

I agree, a new foum would be better than using the existing Building Tips one. We'll still get our share of unhelpful posts, I'm sure. But it should help reduce the confusion for people who are just looking for help with features that actually exist. --Omei Turnbull 15:36, 26 June 2007 (PDT)

Qarl, I'm a little suprised that there has been so little discussion on this. Let's hope it's because a new forum seems like a reasonable idea, and not that nobody cares. Do you have the power to get a new forum created? Let's get on with it!

one hopes, yes.  :) hopefully it will be more lively once the forum is created.

speaking of which - the consensus over here is that we ought to create a mailing list in parallel with sldev. not ideal, i agree, but it should do the job. i'll hopefully get that out soon. --Qarl Linden 15:31, 28 June 2007 (PDT)